Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders packed Louisville’s Palace Theater Tuesday night during a campaign-style rally intended to unify and rebuild the Democratic Party after last year’s elections.

“We need to make the Democratic Party not just the party of the east coast and the west coast, but the party for all 50 states,” Sanders said.

The event was part of a speaking tour through conservative states across the country with the new chair of the Democratic Party, Tom Perez.

Sanders echoed promises he made during his presidential campaign last year — proposals to raise the minimum wage, make public colleges tuition-free, close the pay-gap between men and women and raise taxes on the wealthy and corporations.

He also called for a “Medicaid for all, single-payer system” and criticized Republicans for attempting to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

“You don’t need a Ph.D. in economics to know that it is immoral and bad economics to support legislation that would throw hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians off of the health care that they have — would do serious damage to the economy here,” Sanders said.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) is the country’s most popular active politician, underscoring his importance to the Democratic Party as it seeks to rebuild in the wake of a disastrous 2016 election cycle.

Sanders is viewed favorably by 57 percent of registered voters, according to data from a Harvard-Harris survey provided exclusively to The Hill. Sanders is the only person in a field of 16 Trump administration officials or congressional leaders included in the survey who is viewed favorably by a majority of those polled.

White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon is far and away the least popular political figure in the poll, with only 16 percent viewing him favorably, compared with 45 percent having a negative view of him.

“In losing to Hillary [Clinton], Bernie Sanders has floated above today’s partisan politics while Bannon has, rightly or wrongly, taken the blame for the administration’s failures,” said Harvard-Harris co-director Mark Penn. “It is symptomatic of the Democrats increasingly consolidating to the left while the Republicans are fractured and unable to come together. Sanders is an asset to the Democrats while Bannon is a liability to the administration.”

Only 32 percent have a negative view of Sanders, including nearly two-thirds of Republicans.

LOL There’s another incoherent evil Bernie diary near the top of DK’s rec list, moaning about how Dem women are aghast over the fact that Bernie refused to say he’s a Dem. Supposedly, he’s also just concerned about the WHITE working class. Unfortunately for the crowd of Bernie haters over there, this poll came out today, showing that, in addition to being the most popular politician, Bernie is more popular among women than men. more popular among blacks than whites, and wildly popular among all Dems.

It is mindboggling the anger over there. Accusations of Bernie deserting abortion rights, all kinds of made up stuff that we call “fake news”. If there is one thing we can congratulate Clinton on, it is for that nomenclature “fake news.”

There is one very small sliver that is good: some are open to seeing Keith Ellison more often to represent a progressive agenda.

Apparently both sides have their extremists, the tea party and or Trumps most fanatical followers. On the other side the fanatical Clinton followers that believe that Bernie cost Clinton the election no matter how bad a Candidate she not to mention all her baggage.

The effort to breathe new life into the Democratic Party rolled into Louisville, Kentucky Tuesday night. The new head of the Democratic National Committee and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders are touring 8 states trying to unite the party after last fall’s defeats. In Kentucky, that meant some establishment candidates were ready to finally throwing their support behind Senator Sanders.

The crowd at the Palace Theater was overwhelmingly made up of Bernie Sanders supporters. Considering that many are still unhappy with the way their Presidential candidate was treated by the Democratic Party, all eyes were on the reception they would give the new DNC Chairman, establishment candidates and whether this “Come Together and Fight Back” tour would bring everyone under the same tent.

More cheers than boos welcomed Chairman Tom Perez who’s trying to fill a tall order to reunite the Democratic Party. He and the establishment politicians who took the stage turned to President Trump as a common foe. Chairman Perez called the President’s proposed budget “inhumane” then added an expletive.

“It’s stupid,” said Mr. Perez. “They call their budget a ‘skinny budget.’ I call it a [expletive] budget because it doesn’t treat people well.”
The crowd roared with applause after that line, but there were moments when crowd members shouted their displeasure from the darkened theater.

Congressman John Yarmuth praised Bernie Sanders then a man shouted, “Why did you endorse Clinton?”

Senator Bernie Sanders spoke to hundreds of people in Louisville Tuesday at the Louisville Palace Theatre as part of a cross-country tour.

Senator Sanders didn’t hold back in his speech, taking on the Republican leadership, including President Donald Trump.

“No, president Trump. We are not gonna give you and other billionaires hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks and then cut back on education, food stamps, or the needs of our children or the sick,” Sanders said.

The senator attacked the top one percent of income earners and the quote “billionaire class.”

He spoke about raising the minimum wage, providing healthcare for all, and free public college education.

Senator Sanders says rebuilding infrastructure needs to be addressed and action needs to be taken to stop climate change

Sen. Bernie Sanders Wednesday in Miami will call for a sweeping transformation of the Democratic Party as he seeks to turn anti-Trump energy into something tangible.

“We are the majority,” he said Monday in Portland, Maine, the first rally in a national tour. “It is time we flexed our muscles. It is time we got involved in a way that we have never done before. It is time to make the political revolution.”

Before 1,200 people, Sanders said: “Our job is to radically transform the Democratic Party … into a 50-state party and a party that does not continue to ignore half of the states in our country. Our job is to create a Democratic Party, a grassroots party where decisions are made up from the bottom on up, not from the top on down.”

..

The Florida rally, which begins at 7 p.m., comes five months after Trump won Florida. He saw bigger, more enthusiastic crowd than Hillary Clinton, who failed to keep up the winning streak set by Barack Obama. Sanders will call for Democrats to reach out to Trump supporters.

I don’t think they are unified in their message, despite “shared values” that Perez is espousing. You listen to Perez’s message “access to higher education” then Bernie says “Free tuition at public colleges and universities”.

The answers are interesting to the question, which is what Perez says what he’s learned, he spews talking points about how resilient the folks are whom they meet. Bernie sees more “pain and despair” than what TV camera shows. He gave a specific example of being on a panel and hearing about someone going to college and didn’t have enough money to eat.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders urged Democrats to reach out to President Donald Trump’s supporters to promote a progressive agenda that includes guaranteed health care for all Americans as part of a strategy to rebuild the party.

Sanders told a boisterous crowd Tuesday night in Louisville that Trump has reneged on his promises to working-class voters. He said Democrats should reach out to disillusioned Trump supporters as the out-of-power party tries to recover from last year’s election losses.

..

Sanders, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, called for a grass-roots resurgence in which progressives run for offices ranging from local school board to Congress. He said the party’s strategy should include building a strong base in all 50 states, not just on both coasts.

Earlier in the day, Sanders met with six Kentuckians at a Frankfort coffee shop.

Sanders told reporters he did not come to Kentucky “to convince anybody,” but said it was “absurd” that Kentucky’s elected officials, including the Senate Majority Leader McConnell, would push so hard for a repeal of the Affordable Care Act. The act has resulted in more than 400,000 people getting health insurance through an expanded Medicaid program in Kentucky.

“I suspect that the Democratic Party here in Kentucky has not done the kind of job that it should have done,” Sanders said. “It’s an investment. If people are getting health care, it’s an investment.”

In an age where people believe politicians are liars and crooks, the average American believes Bernie is neither. He’s an honest man. He tells you exactly how he feels. He’s consistent and principled. He has actual policy positions that he believes in and fights for.

Bernie Sanders could’ve and would’ve beaten Donald Trump. Young people would’ve voted enthusiastically for Bernie. Independent voters, which now make up a larger voting bloc than either major party, would’ve come out in droves for Bernie. And traditional Democratic voters would’ve showed up for Bernie.

Poll after poll showed Bernie crushing Trump in a head-to-head matchup — even at times when Clinton was tied or losing to Trump. I believe those polls would’ve held up during the general election. In states like Wisconsin and Michigan, where Hillary lost to Trump, Bernie was wildly popular and pulled out primary victories over Clinton in those states. He would’ve campaigned hard to win in those states.

You don’t defeat nationalism or populism or even racism by running a wildly unpopular candidate. You defeat nationalism and populism by running a candidate who is popular, who draws stadiums full of people, and who the masses of Americans actually trust.

Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Tuesday night that he still does not consider himself a Democrat, despite taking part in a Democratic National Committee unity tour with the party’s new chair Tom Perez.

“No, I’m an Independent,” Sanders said when asked by MSNBC’s Chris Hayes whether he now identifies as a Democrat.

“If the Democratic Party is going to succeed – and I want to see it succeed – it’s gonna have to open its door to Independents,” he continued. “There are probably more Independents in this country than Democrats or Republicans. It’s got to open its doors to working people and to young people, create a grassroots party. That’s what we need.”

Sanders had been dogged by questions about his party affiliation throughout the presidential primary. Last April, his campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, told Bloomberg that Sanders would remain a Democrat after the election.

Sitting alongside Perez during a joint interview, Sanders said that he wants the Democratic Party to focus on key issues for progressives, such as the decline of the middle class, the “need” to take on wealthy interests and unite around “Medicare for all.”

When asked whether the party supports the idea of “Medicare for all,” Perez argued that the party believes “healthcare is a right, not a privilege.”

I can see how a bunch of centrist Dems would not be happy with that statement. But I identify more with Bernie, in that I vote more for candidates than I do for the party, but will support the Dems if they are progressive. Being anti-Trump is important, but not as important as making government more functional with the tax revenues and whatever else it needs for sustainable programs that help many, not just be flimsy safety nets at the mercy of R’s who won’t support them at all. People are unhappy with government because of all of the corporate welfare that our tax dollars support with only a few scraps left. Clinton represented corporate welfare to an extent, enough that it worked against her.

(Interview by Glenn Greenwald, Vitali Shkliarov had worked on Tammy Baldwin’s election in WI and also advised in targeted areas for Obama 2012 re-election. He shares his thoughts as to why Bernie’s campaign was appealing, but how Bernie’s ideas were co-opted by Trump.)

GG: What about the agenda was so appealing?

VS: Well his views of education, reform of political campaign finances. His ideas about or a vision about foreign policy in America, I liked a lot. And it hit me personally, when I moved to the U.S. and when my wife got pregnant with my first baby – that American women don’t have paid maternity leave. That’s, that’s like so normal for someone who is from Europe, you can as a dad, have like up to a year, 70 percent paid maternity leave or paternity leave.

I wasn’t even aware of that: the richest nation on Earth doesn’t have this. And it was like, wow, I didn’t know that actually. And I believe Bernie vocalized it for the first time, like, like in this manner that everybody heard it. And I believe it was so authentic, so true, and I believe people were thirsty for this type of voice, this type of truth.

And I believe exactly that he gave them, and especially why so many people asks why he was so successful among young people, because I believe my theory is that young people have less tolerance for bullshit, that’s exactly the age when the people, the whole social network, the whole life is based around social connections, and the key is if you’re true or not, if you’re legitimate or not, if you’re telling the truth, if you’re a credible or not person.

There’s also some interesting discussion about the current US-Russian tensions. Embeded in the article is the video of the interview. Intercept provided a transcript, edited for clarity and length.

On Tuesday, as the tour continued, Perez and Sanders fell in and out of sync. Perez had spent weeks talking up Jon Ossoff, the Democrat trying to win the suburban Atlanta congressional district vacated when Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price joined the Trump administration. After a closer-than-expected April 11 defeat in a Kansas district, Perez thought Democrats needed to “swing at everything.”

Sanders was less interested in the Ossoff race. “He’s not a progressive,” he said. He was endorsing Democrats based on their economic populism; they could differ from progressives on social issues but not on the threat of the mega-rich to American politics. Soon, he said, the 5-to-4 majority on the Supreme Court was likely to make it legal for the wealthy to give unlimited sums to candidates, and the only way to fight back was grass-roots politicking and small donations.

“If you are running in rural Mississippi, do you hold the same criteria as if you’re running in San Francisco?” he said. “I think you’d be a fool to think that’s all the same.”

Sanders had said this before, and each time, he had sparked anger from a center-left ready to accuse him of abandoning women or nonwhite voters. On Thursday, he was set to campaign in Omaha for Heath Mello, a Democrat running for mayor who had previously backed a bill requiring ultrasounds for women considering abortions.

But Perez and Sanders were on the same page about candidate diversity. “I live in the people’s republic of Takoma Park,” Perez said. “If you demand fealty on every single issue, then it’s a challenge. The Democratic Party platform acknowledges that we’re pro-choice, but there are communities, like some in Kansas, where people have a different position.”